Nick Herbert: Just today, the Prime Minister said:
	"The Criminal Justice System is still the public service most distant from what . . . people want".
	But the merger of police forces such as Bedford, Essex and Hertfordshire, which will cover an area of 2,500 sq m and a population of 3 million, will inevitably make chief constables more distant from the communities whom they are meant to serve. Will the Home Secretary look again at the federal option advanced by the Association of Police Authorities, which would achieve the objective of strengthening protective services without the loss of local accountability? Local people do not want to lose such accountability.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

[Relevant documents: First Special Report from the Regulatory Reform Committee, Session 2005–06, Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, HC 878. Second Special Report from the Regulatory Reform Committee, Session 2005–06, Government's Response to the First Special Report on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, HC 1004. First Report from the Procedure Committee, Session 2005–06, Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, HC 894. Seventeenth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Session 2005–06, Legislative Scrutiny: Eighth Progress Report, HC 1062. Third Report from the Public Administration Select Committee, Session 2005–06, Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, HC 1033.]
	As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.

New Clause 19
	 — 
	Power to remove or reduce burdens

Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	Amendment (a) to new clause 19, in line 2, after 'he', insert 'reasonably'.
	Amendment (b) to new clause 19, in line 3, leave out second 'or' and insert 'and'.
	Amendment (c) to new clause 19, in line 17, leave out from 'means' to end of line 23 and insert 'a public general Act'.
	Amendment (d) to new clause 19, in line 28, leave out 'functions of legislating or'.
	Amendment (e) to new clause 19, in line 36, at end insert—
	'(7A) Provision made under subsection (7)(a) may only confer functions relating to the function of legislating to the extent permitted by section [Sub-delegated legislative functions].'.
	Government new clause 22—Northern Ireland.
	New clause 1—Restriction on powers under Part 1—
	'A Minister may not make any provision by Order under Part 1 unless that provision would have the effect of—
	(a) simplifying or modernising legislation,
	(b) making the overall effect of legislation less onerous, or
	(c) removing inconsistencies or anomalies in legislation.'.
	New clause 4—Part 1 (limitation on burdens and costs)—
	'(1) Save insofar as the Order relates to a person exercising a regulatory function, a Minister may not by order under Part 1 make provision which—
	(a) makes more onerous any duty which may be owed by any person, or any obligation under which any person may be;
	(b) imposes any duty or obligation on any person which is greater than any duty or obligation from which it relieves that person;
	(c) results in increases in cost for any person; or
	(d) creates any disbenefit for any person which is greater than any benefit to that person.'.
	New clause 8—Section 12 (Limitation on Burdens and costs)—
	'Each draft Order laid in accordance with section 12 shall contain a certificate made by the Minister to the effect that it does not make provision which—
	(a) makes more onerous any duty which may be owed by any person, or any obligation under which any person may be;
	(b) imposes any duty or obligation on any person which is greater than any duty or obligation from which it relieves that person;
	(c) results in increases in cost for any person; or
	(d) creates any disbenefit for any person which is greater than any benefit to that person.'.
	New clause 9—Part 1 (impact on small business)—
	'(1) An order under Part 1 must, where its application extends to small businesses, be for the purpose of—
	(a) removing or reducing any burden,
	(b) re-enacting provision having the effect of imposing any burden in cases where the burden is proportionate to the benefit expected to result,
	(c) the removal of inconsistencies and anomalies.
	(2) In this section, the meaning of "small business" is the same as in section 249 of the Companies Act 1985.
	(3) In this Act "burden" includes—
	(a) a restriction, requirement or condition, (including one requiring the payment of fees or preventing the incurring of expenditure) or any sanction (where criminal or otherwise) for failure to observe a restriction or to comply with a requirement or condition,
	(b) any limit on the statutory powers of any person (including a limit preventing the charging of fees or the incurring of expenditure), and
	(c) any matter which in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown causes inconvenience or imposes cost.'.
	New clause 17—Disapplication of European Communities Act 1972 (No. 2)—
	'(1) An order made under Part 1 containing provision relating to Community treaties, Community instruments or Community obligations shall, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, be binding in any legal proceedings in the United Kingdom.
	(2) In section 1 and this section—
	"Community instruments" and "Community obligations" have the same meaning as in Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the European Communities Act 1972 (c. 68);
	"Community treaties" has the same meaning as in section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.'.
	Government amendment No. 10
	Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 11 [Clause 1], leave out from '"legislation"' to end of line 3 on page 2 and insert—
	'(a) means a provision of—
	(i) any public general Act or local Act, or
	(ii) any Order in Council, order, rules, regulations, scheme, warrant, byelaw or other subordinate instrument made under a public general Act or local Act,
	(b) in relation to and notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972 (c. 68), includes provision made before the passing of this Act under Community treaties, Community instruments and Community obligations,'.
	Amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 5 [Clause 1], at end insert—
	'(3A) In this Part, "reforming" shall mean repealing, simplifying or clarifying or making different administrative arrangements for achieving its purposes.'.
	Government amendments Nos. 11 and 12
	Amendment No. 74, in page 2, line 36 [Clause 3], after 'he', insert 'reasonably'.
	Government amendments Nos. 13 to 22, Nos. 24 to 26, Nos. 28 to 32 and Nos. 35 to 37.
	Amendment No. 75, in page 6, line 24 [Clause 12], at end insert—
	'(ba) explain why the Minister considers that the provision cannot be made by primary legislation;'.
	Government amendments Nos. 38 and 39, Nos. 56 to 58 and Nos. 60 to 63
	Amendment No. 78, in page 19, line 3 [Clause 34], leave out
	'extending outside England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland'.
	Government amendments Nos. 64 and 65

Patrick McFadden: I should like to make some progress; I have been generous in giving way.
	Government new clause 22, Government amendments Nos. 10 to 12, 13 to 22, 24 to 26, 28, 29 to 32, 35 to 37, 38, 39, 56 to 58, 60 to 63, 64 and 65 are consequential on the new order-making power under new clause 19.

James Brokenshire: It is interesting to consider to whom the burden applies. There is a protection built into new clause 19, as the provision cannot apply only to a Government Minister or a Department. However, the caveat is limited by proposed subsection (4), which exempts Ministers and Departments that "exercise . . . a regulatory function". Can the Minister tell me where "regulatory function" is defined, or can he provide me with an assurance that that provision will not be misused?

Oliver Heald: The Minister says that he wants to trade surveys, but the problem is that our position is getting worse. All the surveys show that the trend is adverse—it is against Britain and against competitiveness, and that is what needs changing.
	This really was a dreadful Bill, and we said from the outset that a range of changes needed to be made if it was to have any chance of making it on to the statute book. It needed to focus on deregulation, and it needed to have what I described as a veto. Luckily, Ministers are now prepared to consider that, although their proposals are still too restrictive. The Bill also needed to specify what kinds of laws cannot be dealt with using the order-making power. When first introduced, it said that a Minister could change any law in any way for any purpose. That was clearly unacceptable. Ministers are now moving to try to concentrate on deregulation and provide the veto. That is welcome. However, there remain some areas of concern that we will want to debate, not least the Law Commission proposals, where there seems to be very little to constrain what happens, and the veto, which seems to have been very tightly drawn.
	When the concessions started to be made, I was quite amused by the way in which Ministers described what they were doing. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr. Murphy), who struggled through this long campaign and must be relieved to have moved on, said:
	"The time has come for those who claim to want to tackle bureaucracy to stand up and be counted, and let the Government of the day get on with the crucial task of cutting unnecessary red tape."
	The Minister, who is not in her place, said:
	"I . . . stress the need now to get on with the task of removing barriers to productivity that will benefit hundreds of thousands of businesses, charities and public sector workers".
	One begins to ask oneself where they have been for the past nine years as the Government have piled on the bureaucracy and the red tape, and which party has consistently argued for proper deregulatory measures during that time.

Oliver Heald: I would go so far as to say that the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would improve the drafting of new clause 19, and I am therefore supportive of their efforts. However, I cannot argue with the fact that new clause 19 represents a major climbdown and a step in the right direction. I personally feel that it has saved parliamentary accountability in an important area. I am still unhappy with certain other areas of the Bill, however. For example, it confers far too wide a power in saying that the Law Commission may make a recommendation on any matter—even a highly controversial and important one—without any guarantee that it will be debated on the Floor of the House. I do not accept that. Similarly, the terms of the veto that have been offered are inadequate. However, new clause 19 is a step in the right direction. I hope that that explains my view to the hon. Gentleman.
	I also welcome amendments Nos. 23 and 26, which will tighten the way in which the Law Commission's recommendations are to be dealt with. I am still not satisfied with the overall arrangements for the Law Commission's recommendations, but I welcome that tightening. We would certainly be prepared to look at the whole Law Commission issue with the Government. Previously, the House has always dealt with Law Commission recommendations using the Standing Orders of the House. Standing Orders Nos. 58 and 59 apply a fast track to consolidation measures, for example. I am not sure that that is not a better way of tackling Law Commission measures than what is proposed in the Bill. Unless we can find a way of allowing non-controversial Law Commission recommendations to pass, while ensuing that controversial ones are properly debated, I shall be unhappy with new clause 21. That is just a warning, however, because we have not reached that new clause yet.
	New clause 9 is an important proposal, and I look forward to hearing the Government's views on it when the Minister winds up the debate. We believe that it is necessary to consider the needs of small businesses separately when measures of deregulation are proposed. There is already a plethora of examples of that happening, including exemptions in different categories involving businesses with fewer than five, 10 or 15 employees, and so on. Some exemptions apply when a business's rateable value is below a certain point, or when its turnover is lower than a certain amount. There is also a range of regulations providing different kinds of exemptions for small businesses.
	When considering the regulatory regime for business, there is a strong case for requiring the appropriate Minister to consider whether the proposed regulation will be appropriate for small businesses. There is wide support for that requirement in the business community, even among large businesses. For example, the Institute of Directors believes that, on balance, there is a case for applying small firm exemptions. In its report on the subject, it said:
	"The burden of regulations often has a disproportionate impact on SMEs because they lack both the resources and the staff to deal with them . . . Exemptions . . . should be determined on a case by case basis. Small businesses have flourished in the USA partly as a consequence of this approach."
	What we are talking about is allowing Government the choice to impose a regulatory burden on big business, which might be appropriate, and to decide that it would not be appropriate for small business.

Andrew Miller: I thank my hon. Friend.
	My worry about the Bill is that there have been two steps forward and one step back.The new clause represents real progress, but this debate would have been unnecessary had the Government listened to my Committee's advice in the first place. The Committee said that the matter should have been dealt with by means of pre-legislative scrutiny, and a number of Ministers have told me privately that they agree with that. The House produced a device for the purpose of looking to the future, and we could have used it sensibly. After all, the underlying principles of the Bill do not divide the House; what we are arguing about are the detailed mechanisms involved.
	I consider new clause 19 to be a substantial step in the right direction, and I urge the House to accept the principles that it embodies, but a number of points should be considered carefully. The Minister will deal with most of my concerns when he explains where the line will be drawn in the limitation of orders, but we shall not be able to get to grips with some other aspects until we examine the Standing Orders and determine how the RROs should properly be dealt with. We need to establish whether they will be dealt with through the existing Legislative and Regulatory Reform Committee, through a hybrid of some kind, or through a vehicle yet to be devised. We need to keep an eye on the ball. We also need to think ahead about how we will expect the House to empower the Committee or Committees involved to do the necessary work.
	I agree with the thrust of the Minister's remarks, but what he should glean from the debate and his extensive and interesting weekend reading is the fact that, while the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 has not proved as effective as it might have, the blame lies not with the House but with Government Departments. I do not blame Ministers. There is an inertia in the system, with which any Member who has been in the House any length of time will have had to deal. Certainly two or three Conservative Members who have been Ministers in important Departments will take the point. It is extremely difficult to achieve momentum, however determined a Government may be.
	On page 13 of my Committee's report, the First Special Report of Session 2005–06, we have published a chart. It is in microdot form, but there is a good deal of data that are worth examining. The worst example given is that of the Sugar Beet Research and Education Order 2003, which was dealt with by the predecessor Committee. I do not suppose that any Member present recalls what the order did—that does not constitute a challenge—but it spent 1,800 days floating around the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That is extraordinary. I do not know the reason for that because no one ever explained it to the House, but therein lies the core problem that makes the Minister's job that much more difficult.
	We worked hard—I say "we", because the Government generously consulted all four relevant Select Committees closely, and there has been dialogue with the Liaison Committee through the Father of the House, as well—to find a way through the difficult area of definition, and I hope that the methodology adopted proves to be right way. It is better than the alternatives that some of us floated, which included having omnibus lists of exclusions—I look at the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), who had the biggest omnibus of the lot. I think that the mechanism adopted is the better one, but we need to be extremely precise and to make sure that it is clearly understood that we are discussing not burdens on Ministers, but burdens on people outside this place—burdens that the Minister has the power to do something about, for it is he, the Minister, who will bring an order before our Committee.
	Under existing legislation, we spent a tortuous afternoon dealing with the most recent Forestry Commission order. We had to debate what the Forestry Commission was, in constitutional terms. Before that debate, I was not aware that the commission is a non-ministerial Government Department. That raised the interesting technical question: if it is a non-ministerial Department, which Minister introduced the order? However, just as the House accepts the Paymaster General introducing orders on behalf of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, we accept the structure that relates DEFRA Ministers to the Forestry Commission.

David Heath: The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) said that the Bill that left Committee engendered an odd debate. I do not think the debate was remotely odd; it was entirely proper and necessary, because the loose wording that had been adopted drove a coach and horses through our proper parliamentary scrutiny, which is why so many of us were extremely concerned.
	I again welcome the Minister to his new responsibilities. I am sorry that his first parliamentary outing is on one of the most controversial Bills of the year, although at least he has the advantage of introducing amendments that improve it rather than make it worse. He tried manfully to put as good a gloss on the process as possible, although he was not aided by the Minister for the Cabinet Office who left after 12 minutes, which I found surprising given the context of the Bill—but there we are.
	The Minister said that the Government had listened to what had been said by the Committees that have considered the Bill. The Government may have been listening but they certainly did not give the impression that they were prepared to budge an inch in the Standing Committee, where the then Under-Secretary at the Cabinet Office simply replied with assertion after assertion after assertion that it was not his intention, and that if it was not his intention it could not possibly anyone else's intention, to abuse the terms of the legislation, so it was all right.
	The only thing that made the Government think again was the message from the Government Chief Whip in another place, who told them that the Bill was as good as dead unless it was substantially amended before it went there. That is why the Government have tabled the amendments that we are discussing today— rightly so, because the Bill is important. We all wanted to support it and to develop a consensus that enabled us to do so, but we can do that only if the Government remove the wholly unsatisfactory parts of the measure. However, I can tell the Minister that I wholeheartedly agree, without demur, with one of his amendments: No. 10, which leaves out clause 1. That is an extremely good amendment.
	New clause 19 makes the situation better, but it is by no means the final article. It moves some way towards providing a limiting definition, but that definition is still open to misinterpretation and abuse. The problem with the original scope of the Bill was the huge width of interpretation that it allowed Ministers, and indeed a future House. In Committee, we argued that that could be dealt with in three ways: prescription, proscription or protections. All three are valid and more than one of them will be necessary to achieve a workable Bill.
	In this case, the Government have adopted prescription. They have set out the matters that are the province of the Bill. They have said, by definition, what the Bill is intended for and thus, by implication, that there are other matters for which it is not intended and that are outside its scope.
	Some hon. Members would argue strongly—my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) may well be one—that it would be better to have a proscriptive list of those statutes or aspects of statute that should fall outside the Bill's scope. Nevertheless, I welcome new clause 19 as at least a move in the right direction, but as the Minister knows, we and others have tabled amendments to new clause 19, and I ask him, rather than simply rejecting them out of hand, to look carefully at what they would do, because they would not work against the principles that he espouses. Indeed, they would support his view. Amendment (a) would introduce a single but very important word—"reasonably"—into new clause 19. That test of reasonableness would provide an objective, rather than subjective test of whether a Minister was doing what the Minister says would always be a Minister's intention in those circumstances.

Kenneth Clarke: May I begin as everybody else will begin by praising the policy intention behind the Bill? I very much doubt whether there is any right hon. or hon. Member, either present or elected to this House, who does not support the principle of deregulation. We all acknowledge the tremendous pressure that we are under to reverse the inexorable growth of regulation in recent years and the constant reminder we are given by British business about its damaging effects on our competitiveness, so this ought to be a non-controversial Bill. It is a minor miracle that the Government have succeeded in turning it into an extremely controversial piece of legislation. I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) that there is no point in going back now, but I cannot understand why the Government thought that they could carry general support for deregulation into support for a Bill of the kind that they first drafted.
	New clause 19 is indeed extremely welcome. It is the first time that the Government have moved substantially from where they started. The original Bill was drafted in an extraordinary fashion; parliamentary procedure would have been bypassed on every kind of occasion if a Government were minded to do so. New clause 19 has sought to narrow that, but it still has not gone far enough. The Government are still not inclined to restrict their scope sufficiently to reassure me that there is not the danger, perhaps a few years hence, that the provision will be misused and in a way that would further erode the power of this Parliament to check the activities of the Executive. In light of recent history, that is something of which we in this House should always be conscious.
	The best point made by the new Minister, whom I welcome to his post and who did his best to get back to common sense on deregulation, was that there is a danger that we will all be so sensitive about parliamentary procedure that we will become extremely pedantic and Governments will again find that their deregulatory legislation is quite inadequate for anything except making such minor changes as to be of no consequence to anyone. I tell myself—and I hope that everybody else will in this debate—that one must guard against that before looking at new clause 19 and saying that it is not adequate. However, I have done that and I still think that whoever produced the new clause has been too cautious.
	Proposed subsection (3) leaves open the possibility of the repeal of any kind of taxation in response to demands from pressure groups and commercial lobbies. Procedures made illegal by the criminal law could be legalised, and debate prevented by the fast-track procedure. I cited the example of the repeal of the climate change levy, because I thought that the proposal might attract the Minister's interest. Conservative Members support that repeal—presumably, he is not favour of the measure—and there is nothing in the Bill to prevent the Government from introducing it. The Bill could be used to provide an exemption to value added tax on goods or services in response to a well publicised and financed commercial lobby. VAT has become nonsense because so many exemptions have been allowed over the years for political purposes. Plenty of people would argue that their goods or services are so desirable that an exemption is the obvious thing to provide. It would be easier to give way to them, if any Government are so minded, by using the legislation. Airport passenger tax, insurance duty and all kinds of unpopular measures could be repealed under the legislation, subject only to the consultation and the veto of the Select Committee on which the Minister relies as protections.

William Cash: Obviously, the hon. Gentleman is a late entrant to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire said that they will support new clause 17. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman.
	The basis of legislative supremacy is that the courts obey Acts of Parliament. You are right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to bring me back to that point, because that is the essential point that must be understood.
	"The rule of judicial obedience is in one sense a rule of common law . . . it is the ultimate political fact upon which the whole system of legislation hangs."
	Those are the words of Sir William Wade, one of the great constitutional authorities. I mentioned the judgments of Mr. Justice Edward Coke, which, relying on the sovereignty of Parliament, stated that the courts could void Acts of Parliament. We now have democracy, votes and general elections but, unfortunately, in the context of the Human Rights Act 1998, which I shall not dwell on, and the European Communities Act 1972, the judiciary have been trying to push the boundaries beyond the established legislative supremacy of Parliament, by drawing down a greater degree of supranationalism. They have even been saying that treaties have a special status. Neither treaties nor convention can stand in the way of legislation—of Acts of Parliament. All the judicial decisions given in the past several centuries have reasserted that main proposition. Ultimately, the judiciary derive their judicial authority from Parliament and, I should say, from the source of their payments, salaries and allowances.
	I mentioned the comments of Lord Steyn, who is by no means a person with whom one would easily disagree. In the case of Manuel v. Attorney-General, Sir Robert Megarry stated unequivocally:
	"the duty of the court is to obey and apply every Act of Parliament"
	What is required to deal with the problem facing us of burdens of business is a clear and unambiguous statement in the Bill, for which the appropriate form of words is:
	"notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972"
	Even the case of Factortame, which dealt with the Merchant Shipping Act 1988, ultimately depended on the passing of the European Communities Act 1972. In the words of Lord Bridge, Parliament's surrender of sovereignty in the 1972 Act was voluntary. What has been given can be taken away; that is the principle. It does not necessarily follow from my new clause that there would be a political decision and a vote in the House of Commons to do that, although I believe that we have gone far too far in European integration and that we need a substantial and radical retrenchment. Even the judgment of Lord Hope in the recent case of Jackson and others v. Attorney-General ultimately depends on the 1972 Act. Mr. Justice Laws referred to "constitutional statutes", which were purported to be given an additional status over and above ordinary Acts of Parliament. In the context of the European legislation, they themselves would depend on the fact that Parliament had passed the necessary legislation.
	The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. McFadden), has it in mind that some gold-plating can be removed. However, where that gold-plating ultimately depends on the fundamental and intrinsic nature of the European directive or regulation on which it is based, merely removing it and all the Cabinet Office mechanisms that are employed, including regulatory impact assessments, transposition notes, and so on—complicated stuff that nobody in the small business community really knows exists—will be of no value at all if the fundamental issue is not tackled. In the democracy in which we live, the United Kingdom Parliament acquires its authority from the voters at general elections, which decide the Government. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) is correct: Parliament is first. The bottom line is that we have the right to be able to decide what legislation is to be passed.
	There are those, such as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, who—uncritically, I think—are willing to accept pretty well everything that comes from the European Union and do not want it to be amended or repealed. He would argue strongly, as he has today, that the mechanism that I propose is not to his liking. The reality is that we must stipulate that this House is the sovereign place where the democratic wishes of the people of this country are implemented. If it is necessary to override supranational legislation, whether the Human Rights Act or the European Communities Act, it is our right and our duty to do so.
	The legislative supremacy of this House is what the Bill is all about and it is the reason why I tabled new clause 17. I believe that, in the context of the burdens of business and deregulation, this debate has been necessary. I am extremely glad that my hon. Friends will go into the Lobby to support the new clause.

New Clause 20
	 — 
	Power to promote regulatory principles

David Heath: I hope that I can also be relatively brief because I support new clause 20. I had intended to be even briefer, but after hearing the Minister's reply to my intervention, I am struggling to reconcile what the new clause says with the provisions of clauses 20 and 21. The Minister must correct me if I have misunderstood him, but he told us that although clause 23 excludes certain regulators from the provisions of clauses 20 and 21, those regulators are not excluded from the provisions of new clause 20.
	We said in Committee that it was an anomaly that the specified regulators were excluded from clause 20, which says:
	"Any person exercising a regulatory function to which this section applies must have regard to the principles in subsection (2) in the exercise of the function . . . Those principles are that . . . (a) regulatory activities should be carried in a way which is transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent; . . . (b) regulatory activities should be targeted only at cases in which action is needed."
	Sharp-witted Members will have realised that those words also appear in new clause 20. That measure will require a Minister to secure that regulatory functions are exercised by bodies in such as way as to comply with those precise principles, although certain regulators are excluded from those requirements as the Bill presently stands. There is thus a group of regulators that apparently does not need to comply with those principles by virtue of clause 23, but is required to do so by virtue of new clause 20, which the Minister will be able to use to ensure that regulatory functions are exercised in such a way that they comply with those principles. That seems to be an anomaly, albeit not an unwelcome one because at least the principles are there somewhere. Nevertheless, the anomaly might need to be sorted out at a later stage.

Bridget Prentice: The hon. Gentleman is right. Many of the issues that the Law Commission deals with are controversial. That is one of the reasons why, as an independent apolitical body, it is particularly useful to us in the House for examining those very issues. I have no quibble at all with the idea that some of the issues are controversial. To reassure the Law Society of Scotland, I point out that where issues are controversial, as has been said in earlier debates today and as was said in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire, it would not be the Government's intention to put through this system any measure that was particularly controversial. I hope that gives the House some reassurance.
	Secondly, new clause 10 would prevent any order from implementing Law Commission recommendations in the area of family law and rights of occupation or landlord and tenant law in that it relates to the rights of tenants. The Government feel that this is too restrictive because not every proposal is unsuitable for implementation by order. Such blanket prohibitions would create new boundaries. We would need to define family law and the other topics that have been mentioned. We would create, once again, technical limits that have little to do with the merits of the proposal or its suitability for the procedure.
	Some family law and landlord and tenant law proposals would be far too contentious to proceed with other than by primary legislation. The Government have made it clear—I make it clear again this evening— that we will not use the procedure for highly controversial measures. The correct approach is not to rule out reform but to allow proposals to come forward to be considered by the scrutiny Committees. New clause 10 would unnecessarily limit our power and, on that basis, I cannot support it.

Oliver Heald: New clause 21 would enable a Minister to make orders to implement
	"recommendations of . . . the . . . Law Commissions, with or without changes."
	I accept that the Law Commissions are very important, responsible and respectable bodies, and there is no doubt that too few of their recommendations have become law, but one cannot deny that they consider some important and controversial areas. The Minister touched on tenants' rights, provocation in the law of murder and other areas. The question is not the Minister's motives, about which I have not the slightest doubt—[Interruption.] I heard something sotto voce which I will not repeat. Bearing in mind the ability of Ministers to change recommendations, if a Minister did not agree with the full Law Commission proposal, expanded it and wished to continue with it, there is nothing in the Bill that would entitle the House to have the full debate and scrutiny that it would wish for. In those circumstances, I cannot be satisfied with what is proposed.
	New clause 10, which I do not intend to press, would have limited the extent of orders based on the Law Commission recommendations. I welcome the Minister's amendments Nos. 23 and 27, which to some extent deal with the point that was made in Committee.

New Clause 22
	 — 
	Northern Ireland

New Clause 26
	 — 
	Excepted Enactments

ADMINISTRATION

PETITION
	 — 
	Encompass health care practice

Andrew Lansley: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue of particular concern to my constituent—I shall shortly explain his circumstances—that extends to a much wider constituency of opinion. Many people both inside and outside the House think that the time to take action to try to remedy some of the difficulties in the case is overdue.
	I am grateful to the Minister for Local Government for agreeing to replying to our debate on the model code of conduct for councillors. I accept that it would be inappropriate for him to refer to the specific case of Councillor Alex Riley, but I am grateful that he will deal with the wider issues. It might be helpful if I describe the circumstances of Councillor Riley's case. For some time, he has chaired the parish council in the village of Longstanton, which is several miles north-west of Cambridge.
	As a result of the last regional structure plan and the subsequent county structure plan, a large new town is to be built to the north of Longstanton and Oakington comprising 8,000 to 10,000 homes—subsequently, the local development framework settled on 8,000 homes. That large development is very close to Longstanton, and it will envelop parts of the village. It extends to the north, west and east of the village, and in the original plans, it was no more than the distance of a football field from some points of the village.
	As chairman of the parish council, Alex Riley was closely and actively involved in the debate about the structure plans. When it became clear that active planning on the local development framework would begin, he decided to stand for election to represent Longstanton on those issues. In June 2004, he was elected with 70 per cent. of the vote in Longstanton as an independent councillor—the House will observe that this is not a party political matter. From June 2004, he sought to represent the village's views on a range of issues in the local development framework before an outline planning application was made. However, the ethical standards officer alleged that 15 breaches of the code of conduct took place in the space of just five months. I accept that the Minister will not want to comment, but the hearing of that case took place today. It concluded that Councillor Riley was responsible for breaches of the code of conduct but a penalty was not imposed, apart from the fact that he was instructed to receive training in the code. That is ironic, given that he has become insufferably familiar with it to the point of contempt. None the less, in my view—I do not propose to speak for anyone else—those were technical breaches of the code. That is one of the main reasons why no penalty has been applied.
	The issue is the extent to which councillors legitimately sent to their council chamber by constituents are able to represent those constituents. The Local Government Act 2000 set out an ethical framework for councillors, including in section 30 a model code of conduct, which South Cambridgeshire district council adopted in 2002. The code identifies two interests—first, personal interests, which can be defined as anything that might be held to affect a councillor's well-being or financial position, or that of their relatives or friends, to a greater extent than it would affect the local population generally. Secondly, there are prejudicial interests—interests that are so significant that a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard those interests as likely to prejudice the councillor's judgment of the public interest.
	Those definitions are not at issue. Individually, Councillor Riley and all the other residents of Longstanton have personal and, in almost all cases, a prejudicial interest in relation to these matters. Planning decisions must, of course, be made in the public interest, but local residents have a legitimate expectation that that public interest includes and fully takes account of their views as the people most affected by a planning decision. We must ensure that that interest is properly and accurately reflected.
	There is confusion in South Cambridge district council about how the code of conduct should be applied. Without going into detail, it was clear in 2004 that Councillor Riley received conflicting advice about what his personal and prejudicial interests should mean in relation to his participation in the council's discussions. In October 2005 South Cambridgeshire district council took counsel's opinion. That was necessitated by the fact that the council was coming on to examine the local development framework and an outline planning application from Gallagher, which is the promoter of the large scheme. The Minister need not declare an interest, but English Partnerships, which is part of the Department, owns much of the land on which the town is to be built.
	Counsel's opinion pointed out how the district council should, in accordance with the current law, deal with the councillor. First, a councillor with a prejudicial interest would be required to withdraw whenever a meeting was held. A meeting, for these purposes, included any meeting of the authority—not just meetings that formed part of any decision-making process, but informal meetings, briefing meetings or any meeting whatsoever. Secondly, the further requirement that under the code councillors should not seek improperly to influence a matter should be interpreted to include lobbying or making any written representations to members.
	The code allows dispensations, but counsel's advice to the district council was clear. The standards committee of the council could not use those dispensations to avoid adherence to the code. Counsel instanced some of the very limited circumstances to which dispensations might be applied.
	When counsel was advising the planning authority about what Councillor Riley could do, he came up with three options. The first was that Councillor Riley should no longer be regarded as the route through which representations could be made by villagers, so representations could be made direct to the planning director. The second was that villagers should use another councillor who had no disqualifying interest. The third option was that Councillor Riley should resign. He would then be able to make representations as chairman of the parish council or as a private citizen.
	It is curious that the use of another councillor has been the route through which the district council has proceeded. The necessity for Councillor Riley not to apply improper influence has even extended to the point where he is not allowed to discuss matters in his village with the councillor who has been nominated to be the route through which such representations are to be made. Another councillor on the parish council has been so nominated and the deadening hand of the code seems almost to be extending to the point where Councillor Riley cannot even talk to Councillor Grace, who subsequently talks to Councillor Kindersley, who is the councillor through whom their representations might come. Such is the effect of the model code in the way in which it has been interpreted.
	You will not be surprised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have raised the issue with the Standards Board for England. It responded helpfully in November by saying:
	"The Board shares your view that the current rules can be over-restrictive . . . and may exclude members from discussing certain matters which their community would expect them to be addressing or even, in certain cases, where they have been elected to represent specific views. Given the changing role of most councillors, the code needs to be seen to be supporting such local advocacy and the democratic right of a community to be represented when key matters which affect that community are under discussion."
	David Prince, the chief executive, went on to say:
	"The Board has also further recommended that the Government should also give local authorities broader powers to grant exemptions to members with prejudicial interests who nevertheless are speaking on behalf of their constituents."
	The board went on to make recommendations to Ministers that flowed from exactly the same points that were made in their letter to me. The Committee on Standards in Public Life separately has made its own recommendations to Government, and I shall quote one of them. It said:
	"In planning decisions the ability of elected members to represent constituents' interests where they have personal and prejudicial interests has been unnecessarily diminished. This should be changed to give any elected member the right to speak (but not vote) for their constituents at a planning committee meeting or any other quasi-regulatory meeting."
	In that sense, we are clear about the direction in which both the board and the committee see we need to go.
	I wrote, of course, to the Minister. He responded helpfully in January to me, making it clear that the Standards Boards had made these recommendations that he was minded to accept. I suppose that I could have rested on that and not exposed the issue to further gaze in the House, but I wanted to use this opportunity to say that I think that the current situation is untenable. In the case of South Cambridgeshire district council, there has been the benefit of counsel's opinion. It is not an arbitrary opinion. We have arrived at the point where, not seeking improper influence, where Councillor Riley can barely speak to any of his fellow councillors without it being thought to be an improper influence. He cannot even go to informal meetings, briefing meetings or information meetings in the same way as members of the public attend to ascertain what is happening. He cannot ask questions and he cannot make representations.
	Across the country, I have no doubt that this is not the only example. The hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) raised an instance not dissimilar to it on 8 November last year. Throughout the country either councillors are unknowingly breaching the code, as Councillor Riley did in 2004, by speaking on matters where they have an interest, even if they know that they do not have to vote. In many cases they have not concept of the extent to which the moral code of conduct can be interpreted as constraining them. Alternatively, we have councillors throughout the country who are being excluded from discussion of the very issues that they know best and about which they have been elected to represent their constituents.
	Councillor Riley and I do not expect that he should be able to vote on issues where he has a personal or prejudicial interest. He does expect to make a full declaration of interests. He expects also that his representations should be made only openly and transparently. He does not expect to undertake private lobbying or to participate in discussions after he has made his representations. He does however expect to have access to briefings, and to be able to ask questions and make representations in cases where his council colleagues will be making decisions. He said to me plainly that if he cannot persuade them of the merits of the argument, he will understand and accept that he has failed in his task. It is his responsibility to make the arguments.
	The issue is not settled; Ministers need to make progress. The outline application for the Northstowe development, which encompasses Longstanton, has yet to be considered and determined. Circumstances such as Councillor Riley's will arise elsewhere in the country. It is important that changes to the code be made as a matter of urgency. If the code is not changed under the secondary legislation that local government legislation permits, this negation of democracy will carry on and, far from inspiring confidence in local government, the code of conduct's application will bring local government into disrepute.